Google’s Panda Update Rolls-out To UK

As you’ve probably read somewhere recently (or maybe you were impacted by directly), Google released the “Panda Update” – labelled the “Farmer Update” Thursday February 24.
Thanks to our leading SEO analytics software, the Searchmetrics Suite, we were able to show which websites were both negatively and positively impacted by this update. Check-out the full post here.

Google’s Panda Update now hit the UK

However, as we quickly realized, the update was only released for Google.com. Thus it has not affected any other countries until yesterday when Google announced that it has rolled out Panda globally to all English-language Google users. Interestingly, Google confirms that for this update it’s also using user data from its “block these pages from your results” function.

We’ve performed an analysis with millions of different keywords in the short -and longtail of the impact of this update. We analyzed the top 100 domains with the greatest gains and losses in our Organic Performance Index (OPI) from the previous week. The OPI is calculated according to a keyword’s search volume, position and the statistical value of traffic distribution.

The update is made every week and we can definitely confirm that the update has hit the UK – in a big way.

eHow.com and co.uk lost more than 50%

Surprisingly, ehow.co.uk and ehow.com has lost more than 50% in terms of visibility and the alarm bells are probably going off at Qype.co.uk which has lost a whopping 96%! A lot of price comparison sites like ciao.co.uk (in a lawsuit with Google) and dooyoo.co.uk also lost nearly 90% of visibility.

Some interesting graphs (click to enlarge):

Ciao.co.uk lost ~94% of SEO visibility

eHow.com and eHow.co.uk lost over 50%

Hubpages lost also in the UK index

Reviewcentre.com is in absolute numbers the biggest loser

Cheap flights comparison site airfaresflights.co.uk lost ~95% SEO visibility. Some competitors like skyscanner only 4%.

Dooyoo.co.uk has the same fate like Ciao.co.uk with a ~94% loss

Point-of-interest community Qype.co.uk is now in the middle of nowhere

And now for the top 20 winners. Nothing drastic here, but some confirmation that sites where users spend a lot of time looking at pages have gained more visibility following the update.

domain

Visibility (OPI) new

Visibility (OPI) old

difference

%

ebay.co.uk

1469346

1034302

435044

42.06%

techcrunch.com

174797

124220

50577

40.72%

national-lottery.co.uk

292053

209357

82696

39.50%

econsultancy.com

186175

135804

50371

37.09%

thisismoney.co.uk

234717

180377

54340

30.13%

siteslike.com

175869

140279

35590

25.37%

mirror.co.uk

275876

220937

54939

24.87%

blogspot.com

1006719

819832

186887

22.80%

mashable.com

295137

240714

54423

22.61%

itv.com

345470

282300

63170

22.38%

metro.co.uk

181507

149271

32236

21.60%

independent.co.uk

471896

388280

83616

21.53%

mozilla.org

146282

122471

23811

19.44%

youtube.com

8856696

7446902

1409794

18.93%

vimeo.com

168979

142182

26797

18.85%

wordpress.com

331836

279738

52098

18.62%

laterooms.com

150533

127297

23236

18.25%

dailymotion.com

577590

490328

87262

17.80%

soundcloud.com

150998

128569

22429

17.45%

Download the Top100 winners here. That’s all for now and we’ll be monitoring the post-release impact very closely as this will be coming very soon to the rest of the World.

Who’s writing this stuff? My name is Marcus Tober and I’m the founder of Searchmetrics. Because we really love to analyze every kind of online data, we can give you more insights than any other company in SEO, SEM and Social Media. It’s not a job, it’s passion. You can find me also on Google+ .Show all articles from Marcus Tober.

At times I contemplate if people actually devote some time to come up with something imaginative, or are they just dishing out words to occupy a web page. This undoubtedly doesn’t fit that form. Thank you for spending the time to compose with appeal. From time to time I read through a post and question if they even proofread it.Superior work with this posting.

Good to see that Google has clamped down on thin content sites. It was only a matter of time before Google considered the domain as a whole as apposed to ranking individual pages on a site. I’m all for this update as ultimately it will make the web a better place.

Thanks for another excellent article. Where else could anybody get that kind of info in such a perfect approach of writing? I’ve a presentation subsequent week, and I’m on the look for such information.

Wow, amazing blog layout! How long have you been blogging for? you make blogging look easy. The overall look of your website is excellent, let alone the content!. Thanks For Your article about Googleâ€™s Panda Update Rolls-out To UK Searchmetrics Suite Blog .

At first I hated everything to do with a panda nevermind the update but now I am getting used to writing decent content that users want rather than pages with no uniqueness and basically thin content. Although my sites did take a hit I will be ready for anything else they throw at me.

Interesting to see that a site like ezinearticles is losing so much. Further there seem to be quite some voucher and download sites on the losers list… It was about time I would say. Not a lot of valuable content on those usually.

In our experience Google is now using more and more hard data to rank websites. Task completion and bounce rates are driving the Panda algorithm. If your website/pages do not deliver what the (Google searcher) is looking for, and the searcher bounces back to Google in double quick time – expect your SERPS ranking to drop according to Panda!

Paul Brewster

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[…] This makes interesting reading and shows what sites have been hit hardest and done the best. Google For us our sites have risen up the SERPS so things are looking good on a personal front. Work […]

[…] Many websites in the UK today are feeling the impact of Google’s Panda update, one day after was officially rolled out to all English-language Google users. Much like the devastation unleashed on unsuspecting sites in the U.S. in February, today price comparison sites and many content sites (e.g., news, reviews, blogs) Google has deemed “shallow” have been hammered in the UK search results, according to preliminary data released today by Searchmetrics. […]

[…] Google’s Panda Update Hits the UK: Early Winners & Losers By Editor, on April 12th, 2011 Many websites in the UK today are feeling the impact of Google’s Panda update, one day after was officially rolled out to all English-language Google users. Much like the devastation unleashed on unsuspecting sites in the U.S. in February, today price comparison sites and many content sites (e.g., news, reviews, blogs) Google has deemed “shallow” have been hammered in the UK search results, according to preliminary data released today by Searchmetrics. […]

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[…] Many websites in the UK today are feeling the impact of Google's Panda update, one day after was officially rolled out to all English-language Google users. Much like the devastation unleashed on unsuspecting sites in the U.S. in February, today price comparison sites and many content sites (e.g., news, reviews, blogs) Google has deemed "shallow" have been hammered in the UK search results, according to preliminary data released today by Searchmetrics. […]

[…] Many websites in the UK today are feeling the impact of Google’s Panda update, one day after it was officially rolled out to all English-language Google users. Much like the devastation unleashed on unsuspecting sites in the U.S. in February, today price comparison sites and many content sites (e.g., news, reviews, blogs) Google has deemed “shallow” have been hammered in the UK search results, according to preliminary data released today by Searchmetrics. […]

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[…] you know, Google has rolled out the Panda update internationally in the English language. SearchMetrics has put out a list of the top victims in the UK. We’ll be exploring more of this in time, but one thing that realy sticks out in this report […]

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[…] the impact of the update and the top 100 winners and losers of Panda have been discovered at this blog here. Interesting reading, especially as one of the sites which seems to have lost a lot of […]

[…] Analysis from SearchMetrics finds that the ‘Farmer Update’, out in February 2011, has pushed some US brands down in the rankings, especially US companies which also have UK domains. According to the report between April 5 and 12, 2011, brands like Shopping.com and Shopzilla have seen their search rankings fall by more than 50%. More content-heavy hubs such as EHow also saw decreases of as much as 50%. The biggest loser has been Qype.co.uk which dropped 96% after the update went into effect. There are winners for the change, as well. So far E-Bay is making out well thanks to the change with a 42% increase in visibility. Content hubs such as EConsultancy, TechCrunch and The Mirror have also seen significant gains in visibility since the change. […]

[…] Analysis from SearchMetrics finds that the ‘Farmer Update’, out in February 2011, has pushed some US brands down in the rankings, especially US companies which also have UK domains. According to the report between April 5 and 12, 2011, brands like Shopping.com and Shopzilla have seen their search rankings fall by more than 50%. More content-heavy hubs such as EHow also saw decreases of as much as 50%. The biggest loser has been Qype.co.uk which dropped 96% after the update went into effect. […]

[…] Analysis from SearchMetrics finds that the ‘Farmer Update’, out in February 2011, has pushed some US brands down in the rankings, especially US companies which also have UK domains. According to the report between April 5 and 12, 2011, brands like Shopping.com and Shopzilla have seen their search rankings fall by more than 50%. More content-heavy hubs such as EHow also saw decreases of as much as 50%. The biggest loser has been Qype.co.uk which dropped 96% after the update went into effect. […]

[…] Analysis from SearchMetrics finds that the ‘Farmer Update’, out in February 2011, has pushed some US brands down in the rankings, especially US companies which also have UK domains. According to the report between April 5 and 12, 2011, brands like Shopping.com and Shopzilla have seen their search rankings fall by more than 50%. More content-heavy hubs such as EHow also saw decreases of as much as 50%. The biggest loser has been Qype.co.uk which dropped 96% after the update went into effect. […]

[…] Analysis from SearchMetrics finds that the ‘Farmer Update’, out in February 2011, has pushed some US brands down in the rankings, especially US companies which also have UK domains. According to the report between April 5 and 12, 2011, brands like Shopping.com and Shopzilla have seen their search rankings fall by more than 50%. More content-heavy hubs such as EHow also saw decreases of as much as 50%. The biggest loser has been Qype.co.uk which dropped 96% after the update went into effect. […]

[…] Analysis from SearchMetrics finds that the ‘Farmer Update’, out in February 2011, has pushed some US brands down in the rankings, especially US companies which also have UK domains. According to the report between April 5 and 12, 2011, brands like Shopping.com and Shopzilla have seen their search rankings fall by more than 50%. More content-heavy hubs such as EHow also saw decreases of as much as 50%. The biggest loser has been Qype.co.uk which dropped 96% after the update went into effect. […]

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[…] and are trying to figure this out, don’t believe everything you read either, a recent report on Search Metrics suggested a list of losers from their data but I can tell you 5 of the sites on their losers list […]

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[…] Interestingly, Google confirms that for this update its also using user data from its block these pages from your results function. Weve performed an analysis with millions of different keywords in the short -and longtail of the impact of this update. We analyzed the top 100 domains with the greatest gains and losses in our Organic Performance Index (OPI) from the previous week. The OPI is calculated according to a keywords search volume, position and the statistical value of traffic distribution. The update is made every week and we can definitely confirm that the update has hit the UK in a big way. eHow.com and co.uk lost more than 50% Surprisingly, ehow.co.uk and ehow.com has lost more than 50% in terms of visibility and the alarm bells are probably going off at Qype.co.uk which has lost a whopping 96%! A lot of price comparison sites like ciao.co.uk (in a lawsuit with Google) and dooyoo.co.uk also lost nearly 90% of visibility. Some interesting graphs (click to enlarge): Ciao.co.uk lost ~94% of SEO visibility eHow.com and eHow.co.uk lost over 50% Hubpages lost also in the UK index Reviewcentre.com is in absolute numbers the biggest loser Cheap flights comparison site airfaresflights.co.uk lost ~95% SEO visibility. For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://blog.searchmetrics.com/us/2011/04/12/googles-panda-update-rolls-out-to-uk/ […]

[…] some original research data on what’s happening at the Searchmetrics blog and a good summary at the Holistic Search Marketing […]

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About Searchmetrics

Searchmetrics is the pioneer and leading global provider of digital marketing software and services. It operates the Searchmetrics Suite, an innovative, interactive online marketing and enterprise level Search Engine Optimization (SEO) platform. In our blog we write about current issues in the areas of online marketing and SEO and show interesting statistics and trends.